She laughed, once again appreciating how he could mix lightness and humor with the most serious thoughts.
“No,” she said, her eyes luminous upon his face, “I shouldn’t have left you. Deborah—she would have been our little girl, you know—and you and I would have stayed in your officer’s tent, and I would have continued cooking and mending for you and fending off the other officers, who, of course, would have fallen in love with me.”
“And they would have. And I would have been obnoxiously possessive and jealous, and you would have rapped me on my head, thrown your delicious cooking in my face, and doubtless left my shirts unamended and tattered.”
“I wish you weren’t right so much of the time. And yes, she would have felt overwhelming guilt about leaving her father.”
He heard the bitterness in her voice. “Her?”
“I occasionally think about that silly, stupid, guileless little fool.”
“No. Dammit, Arielle, she is you, part of you, and whenever you laugh, it is her laughter, your laughter. That very sweet, innocent young girl is still there, but you’re a woman now and you’ve tempered her, made her grow and become someone special, someone I love with all my being.”
He leaned over and kissed her. He wanted to kiss her until he had banished all the pain in her, all the bitterness and hurt. “You are my wife,” he said. “You are mine.”
“Yes,” she said and cupped his face between her hands.
He kissed her again, feeling the heat of the sun on his back and the heat of her against his heart.
Burke watched Arielle closely when she walked into the drawing room that evening. He wasn’t entirely successful in keeping the amusement from his face. As Arielle’s bad luck would have it, only Nesta and Alec were there. She was embarrassed, he knew it, but she managed to smile at Nesta and make an easy enough greeting. As for Alec Carrick, she couldn’t meet his eyes.
Alec, on the other hand, wasn’t at all leveled by embarrassment. He said in the blandest voice Burke had ever heard, “Lovely day, wasn’t it, Arielle?”
“Yes,” Arielle said, her eyes on Burke’s boots now instead of on her own slippers.
“And it was a lovely, quite memorable morning as well, don’t you agree, little one?”
That brought her head up, and she opened her mouth only to shut it again when she saw the wicked expression of Alec’s impossibly handsome face.
“What’s this?” Percy said, coming into the drawing room, Lannie beside him. “Trouble in this paradise of couples?”
“Alec is being a cad,” said Nesta. “He occasionally does it very well.”
“A common ailment among gentlemen,” said Arielle.
Lannie giggled. “Since Percy isn’t yet a husband, I shan’t put him properly in his place.”
Percy groaned. “I was going to propose soon, fall at your dainty feet, and offer you my hand and my house and my carriage. Now I am not so certain. What do you think, Burke? Would you marry Arielle again?”
“Unfair,” said Alec before Burke could respond. “He’s been leg-shackled but a very short time. He’s still existing in a fog of marital and sexu—well, never mind that. You should be asking an old married man like me. Merciful heavens, nearly five years now. I teeter near the grave. There was a gray hair in my head this morning, and I have yet to see twenty-seven.”
Arielle said, “But you are still existing in that—well, you’ve been married a very long time, and evidently that fog doesn’t go away—at least it hasn’t with you and Nesta and—” Arielle’s voice broke off, and she felt herself hugged very tightly by a laughing husband.
“Celibacy is just around the corner,” Alec said, and looked ready to burst into tears.
“What is all this?” Knight asked from the doorway. He looked immaculate and fit and, Burke thought, eyeing him more closely, immensely pleased with himself.
“Nothing of import,” Burke said. “What’s going on, Knight? You look like a wicked tomcat.”
“Well, my dear fellow, the gentlemen will be off to a little town called Chiddingstone on Friday morning. There’s a mill, and I’ve bespoken rooms for us at the The Gooseneck Inn. I ran into Rafael Carstairs and Lyon Ashton, and we decided to make a party of it.” He beamed at everyone.
Burke almost shook his head, but he paused when Arielle said, “A mill is fighting, isn’t it? Between two men? With their fists?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Percy. “I say, Knight, well done.”
“Ugh,” Lannie said.
“You will enjoy that, will you not?” Arielle asked Burke.
“I, well, yes, I guess so. But I don’t want to leave you.”
She smiled at him. “I am not your mother to tie you to my skirts. Nor am I an invalid, Burke.”
“No, what you are is a bride and—”
She heard Alec laugh from behind her and quickly placed her fingertips over Burke’s mouth. “You will survive it, I am certain, my lord, as will I. I, also, you will notice, have two ladies to keep me company. We will enjoy ourselves immensely, I promise you.”
He caught her hands in his. “You’re certain?”
“Another symptom,” said Alec. “He’s in such a fog he can’t see the world outside his bedcham—”
“That is quite enough,” said Nesta.
“Who are the fighters?” Burke asked.
“The champion, Cribb, and Molyneux. Molyneux’s the heavier, I heard—and his arms, Lord, they’re a good two inches longer than Cribb’s—but neither of them is over fourteen stone. I’m for Cribb, of course, but Molyneux isn’t to be dismissed lightly.”
“Why would you be for Cribb when Molyneux has such long arms he could hit Cribb and not be hit?” asked Arielle.
“A matter of science,” said Knight. “Experience and intelligence and cunning and ruthlessness.”
“That about covers it,” said Burke.
Lannie shot a comic look at Arielle and Nesta, heaved a martyr’s sigh, and asked, “What do you think would happen if ladies became fighters?”
“I don’t know,” Arielle said, “but I think we are endowed with goodly amounts of this science Knight was talking about.”
Montague cleared his throat in the doorway. “Dinner is served, my lady.”
“An important part of science is good and regular eating habits,” said Percy and offered his arm to Lannie.
“Another important part of science is a sweet kiss before every meal,” said Burke, kissed his wife, then lightly tapped her chin. “It’s good for the digestion.”
“The final important part of all this science,” said Knight, his tone one of amused tolerance, “Is the ability to keep oneself sane when surrounded by all these very tedious mating rituals.”
“Your day will come, Knight,” said Alec.
“Never,” said Knight with a goodly amount of vehemence. “Not I. Not a chance. Never in a million eons. I’m starving.”
“In bed at last, where we belong. Do you realize I’ve never made love to you in a bed?”
Arielle thought of the sweet smell of the leaves and grass and moss, and the tingling shafts of sunlight that had struck her bare flesh. She thought of the hardness of his body over hers, and she knew she would remember until the day she died the feelings he’d ignited in her that first time.
“It was nice,” she said with great inadequacy, “in the maple grove.”
“Oh, yes,” said Burke, his voice very deep. He slowly drew down the sheet and bared her breasts.
“Burke, I hadn’t expected things to be like this.”
He’d been studying her breasts, but now he looked at her face. “You mean pleasure, with me, a man?”
“That, I suppose, and feeling good about being me, and not being afraid anymore.”
Again he experienced that wrenching feeling deep inside him that made him nearly frantic with need and love for her. He stroked his open palm over her breasts, slowly, back and forth. He said, wanting to be honest with her, “But it is still a ver
y fragile feeling, isn’t it, Arielle?”
“I don’t know.” Her breathing was a bit jerky and he smiled, knowing what she was feeling.
“You are so very soft,” he said and bent his head to her breast.
He felt her fingers tangling in his hair, pulling him closer. “Very nice,” he said. “Very nice indeed.”
“You’re nicer,” she said and tugged at his ear. He kissed her mouth then, as she wanted, deeply and thoroughly, giving and giving, offering her everything that he was, willing her to accept him and to understand him.
She felt his finger slide into her just as his tongue eased into her mouth, and she cried out with the explosion of feeling it caused and the images it created in her mind. Her hands were all over him then, feeling him, kneading him, pulling him closer, hugging him to her with all her strength.
He felt her legs part for him, and that simple gesture from her, her giving, her openness, made him tremble. He couldn’t slow now. He was between her spread thighs, looking down at her, his fingers urgent as they stroked and parted her, and then he came into her, one full, deep thrust, and she cried out.
He was wild with his own need, beyond himself, and when he exploded inside her, he cried out her name and felt himself falling blindly, freely, until he realized that she was with him, holding him and loving him and urging him. And then he knew oblivion, and it was perfect.
Arielle finally opened her eyes. He was still deep inside her, his breathing hard, his head on the pillow beside hers. She smiled, lightly stroking her fingers over his cheek. Then she froze.
No, she thought, oh, God, no.
Burke felt her tense. Immediately, he rolled off her. “What is wrong? Am I too heavy for—”
She was shaking her head and rising. “Dorcas!”
Dorcas? Burke tried to regain his wits. What the devil was going on here?
“She was standing there, in the shadows by the door. She was watching us, Burke. Watching.”
Burke rolled off the bed. “Stay here. Please,” he said as he put on his dressing gown. He pulled the belt tightly about his waist. He walked barefoot to the adjoining door, opened it, and went into her bedchamber.
Arielle didn’t understand. Was it possible that Dorcas had heard them and thought perhaps that Burke was hurting her? Yes, that was it. That would be the only reason the old woman would do such a thing. Oh, God, how long had she been watching them?
She heard Burke moving about in the other room; then he called out, but she couldn’t make out his words. Finally he rejoined her. “I couldn’t find her,” he said.
“I know why she came in,” Arielle said. “She must have thought that you were hurting me. It’s the only possible explanation.”
He looked worried and angry. She heard him curse very softly, some of his words so lurid that she laughed.
He grinned at her rather sheepishly. “Sorry, but that’s the outside of too much. Now, let me bathe you. Stay still and I’ll fetch a cloth.”
While he was running the warm, wet cloth over her, he was saying, “Do you hurt?”
“Just a bit sore, that’s all.”
“I was excessively enthusiastic. Here, does this make you feel better?”
He was pressing the cloth firmly against her, and she felt embarrassment. It was silly; after all, he was her husband, and she imagined that he knew her body every bit as well as she knew it herself, but still—“Yes,” she managed to say.
He patted her dry, and before she could respond, he leaned down, parted her with his fingers, and kissed her.
“Burke.”
“Hush.”
He was caressing her, his tongue probing and stroking, and she was so embarrassed that she jerked upward, pulling away from him. He looked up at her flushed face and smiled. “You’re beautiful,” he said simply and that, she supposed, was that.
“My face?”
“That too.”
“Oh.”
“Back to one syllable, I see.”
“I didn’t know that—well, I’m not certain that you should do what—oh, dear.”
He laughed, gently kissed her again, lightly stroked his fingers over the rich red curls, and came up to lie beside her. “Now let’s talk. I can manage five minutes of talk, I think.”
She ducked her face into his shoulder. She hadn’t imagined that a man would do that. It was disconcerting, it was—Then she thought about herself, on her knees, taking a man’s member into her mouth, and she choked back a sob.
“What is this?” Burke felt a stab of concern. He’d expected her to be embarrassed, but this? “Come, sweetheart, what’s the matter?”
“I was just remembering how I would be on my knees and how I would—”
She didn’t finish. He hugged her to him. “I know. I know. It’s all right. Hush now.” He sighed deeply and kissed the top of her head.
“Do you want to speak to Dorcas tomorrow, or shall I?”
He felt her become alert at that. “I’ll speak with her, Burke.”
“Perhaps she came in because she heard you moaning with pleasure and she couldn’t believe it.”
“That,” Arielle said, “is a possibility.”
Burke doused the candles. “Let’s sleep now, before I am overcome with lust for you again.”
He heard her soft laughter in the darkness and he smiled.
It was barely dawn, soft gray light setting into the bedchamber. Burke turned in his sleep, leaving the warmth of Arielle’s body, and felt the air, cool on his flesh, and came awake.
He opened his eyes and looked up into Dorcas’s face.
Nineteen
It was her eyes—vague, the pupils pinpoints of light in the dimlit room—that made Burke come awake in an instant. He saw her raised arm, saw the knife in her hand. It was aimed at Arielle. He shouted, striking up at her arm as he rolled over Arielle to get to Dorcas. The blade slid into his flesh. He felt a shudder of cold where the knife had struck, then a blessed numbness. The knife was jerked out of his flesh, its way smooth, even slick, leaving its path frozen. He’d experienced this before, knew what it meant.
Arielle came awake under Burke’s weight and his yell. She looked up.
“Dorcas. No!” She saw the knife, saw the tip of it dripping blood. She saw the old woman lift her arm, saw the knife coming down. Burke again was trying desperately to cover her, and she felt the stickiness of his blood, knew he was hurt. With a strength she didn’t know she possessed, she slid up, away from him, raised her pillow in front of her as the knife descended. It ripped through the pillow to its hilt, missing Arielle’s throat by an inch.
But Arielle wasn’t afraid for herself; she was terrified that Burke was going to die. She screamed in fury when Dorcas tore the knife from the pillow. She lunged at the old woman, smashing her against the night table next to the bed. The knife flew out of Dorcas’s hand and went skidding across the wooden floor. The old woman was yelling now, fierce, obscene curses. She was panting heavily, her fists flailing at Arielle.
Arielle heard Burke behind her, but she paid him no heed. She brought her leg up and slammed her foot into the old woman’s stomach. Dorcas screamed, doubling over. Arielle rammed her fist into Dorcas’s jaw, and the old woman crumbled to the floor.
Arielle stood over her for a moment, breathing hard, the insane strength and purpose still holding her in its grip.
“Arielle.”
She whirled about and saw Burke standing beside the bed, one hand clutched to the bedpost for support, the other holding his injured shoulder. Blood flowed from between his fingers, down his chest. She stared, unable for a long moment to take it in.
Then she quickly grabbed her dressing gown, thrusting her arms into the sleeves as she dashed into the corridor yelling at the top of her lungs, “Alec! Knight! Percy!”
She shouted their names again and again, and within seconds, Alec, shrugging into his own dressing gown, flung open the door opposite her.
“What the hell? Arielle?”
“Quickly! It’s Burke!”
Arielle ran back into their bedchamber. Burke was now leaning against the bedpost. His chest and hand were crimson. There was a pool of blood on the floor. His foot, she saw blankly, was splattered with blood.
“Oh, my God. What the devil happened?”
Arielle felt a strange calm come over her. She didn’t recognize it as shock, but Alec did. He took her hands and began to rub them rhythmically. She said slowly, as if she were a child reciting a piece for an adult, “Dorcas tried to kill me. Burke saved my life. He is hurt. Ah, Knight, there you are. Please have one of the men fetch Dr. Brody immediately. Thank you.”
She turned, stepped over the unconscious old woman, and walked to her husband. “Sit down,” she said. Then she went to the basin, moistened a towel, and came back to him, pressing the folded towel against the wound.
Alec said very gently, “Let me do that, Arielle. I’m stronger, and we need to get the bleeding to stop.” He didn’t add that she wasn’t pressing in the right place.
She looked up at him, and he felt his guts twist at her lost expression. “It’s all right. He’ll survive. He’s a tough specimen, you know. Why don’t you sit down, too? Burke needs you to be strong now.”
She did as she was told. Burke gathered her against his good side, hoping his ability to make that gesture would help reduce her shock.
Nesta, Lannie, and Percy rushed into the room, staring silently at the unconscious Dorcas and at the people who stood over Burke by the bed. No one remarked that the earl was quite naked.
“What happened, Arielle?” Nesta asked.
Arielle carefully repeated what she’d told Alec.
Percy gingerly picked up the bloody knife. “My God, is she insane?”
“It would appear so,” said Burke, trying desperately to focus on anything outside himself. The pain had come suddenly alive. The blessed period of numbness was over. Throbbing, burning heat had taken the place of the deadening cold. He knew what was to follow and he didn’t like it at all. The irony of being stabbed in his own bed after surviving years of fighting the French wasn’t particularly amusing at the moment.
Night Fire Page 26
